I eat vegetables every day. I try to eat a lot of them. Here's where the fallen vegetable heroes come to be displayed.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Grow your own green onions + make 'em into pancakes!

A couple of weeks ago I was reminded of the the most brilliant idea-- growing
green onions in your kitchen from used-up ones. I had some super
shrivelled-up ones left over from Lunar New Year shenannigans and
decided I had nothing to lose. So I chucked some green onions in a cup
with the tops cut off, and within a couple of days you could see growth!

Fast-forward to 10 days later
and I've got such tall green onions, they're tipping over in the cup.
Since I don't generally use many green onions at once and I didn't want
these fabulous beauties to go to waste, I decided to cook up some
Pa-Geon-- a Korean green onion pancake. When I visited my brother in
Korea, we visited a pizza shop where we ate one of the most amazing
meals I had there-- a green onion and kimchi pizza. They made it in the
shape of a heart, possibly assuming (and not the first to do so) that my
brother and I were lovers rather than siblings. Anyway, when I was on
the plane ready to leave Korea, I was in tears when I realized I'd
possibly never eat kimchi green onion pizza ever again (and that I
wouldn't see my brother for several months).

Fast-forward
yet again to this year when my brother decided to figure out how to
make these pancakes/pizza (call it what you will). We've made them twice
together and are always experimenting with different ingredients.
Sadly, today I had no kimchi or even sauerkraut in the fridge, so I
made a simple green onion pancake. Here's how:

Beat
egg or prepare egg replacer. Mix everything together and let stand 10
minutes before cooking the pancake for a few minutes on each side (until
the edges begin to brown). The batter should be slightly runnier than
typical pancake batter.

Spicy dipping sauce with this is traditional and super fun. Here's the one I made:

Spicy dipping sauce, y'all:

1 1/2 T. soy sauce

1 1/2 T. rice vinegar

1 t. toasted sesame oil

1 tsp. gochu flakes (hot korean red peppers)

1 garlic clove, minced

Mix
and dip triangles of your pizza into this. I like to use chopsticks,
but you could use your fingers, or most boringly, a dumb ol' fork.

I
also had a tiny bit of red cabbage kicking around, so I made this Asian
Slaw to accompany the pancakes for breakfast. This whole thing,
including taking the photos took probably 20 minutes, possibly less.

Asian Slaw:

2. c. red cabbage, grated

1 carrot, grated

dressing:

2 T. rice vinegar

1 T. soy sauce

3/4 t. maple syrup

1/4 t. mirin (or just a full tsp of maple)

1 tsp. grated ginger

1 tsp. sesame oil

some black sesame seeds for garnish + crunch + high calcium!

Grate vegetables. Mix dressing together. Dress with however much dressing you want. I used about 2/3 of it it tasted nice and fresh, somewhat like carrot apple juice, oddly (with sesame oil). If you weren't serving this with the dipping sauce and pancakes, you might want to use more dressing, but sesame oil can be powerful, so I erred on the side of less. A wonderful breakfast.

Grow some green onions PLEASE if you like 'em. I ALWAYS end up not using a full bunch when I buy them, so this is perfect- and if you have too many you can give them away. Thanks to Kevin and Sophie for telling me about this intially. It only took me a year and a half to bother to do this!

Yes, it's as easy as that! Just cut them down to a couple of inches and stick the root end into some water until the white part is covered. I've bene telling everybody because it's so easy and so awesome! And yes, the green onion pancake is lovely and savoury and you could do so many variations. I hope you grow some onions & thanks for stopping by!

I just have to try growing onions. What a great idea.The Asian slaw looks amazing and I just want to lick the screen especially since I'm on day 22 of my juice cleanse. Thank you for posting!!http://www.veganrawfood.net